Monday, March 24, 2014

Wanderers Blog Tour

Today on my blog I have the Wanderers blog tour. On my stop there is a spotlight and interview.

WANDERERS

(Wasteland #2)

The Emmy Award-nominee and Edgar Award-winning duo bring readers back to the Wasteland in this thrilling sequel.

Karin Slaughter, bestselling author of Criminal, called Wasteland, "A Lord of the Flies for future generations. An irresistible page-turner."

The former citizens of Prin are running out of time. The Source has been destroyed, so food is scarcer than ever. Tensions are rising…and then an earthquake hits.

So Esther and Caleb hit the road, leading a ragtag caravan. Their destination? A mythical city where they hope to find food and shelter - not to mention a way to make it past age nineteen.

On the way, alliances and romances blossom and fracture. Esther must rally to take charge with the help of a blind guide, Aras. He seems unbelievably cruel, but not everything is as it seems in the Wasteland.…

In this sequel to Wasteland, the stakes are even higher for Esther, Caleb, and the rest of their clan. They're pinning all their hopes on the road...but what if it's the most dangerous place of all?

LAURENCE: I’m proud of most of what I’ve
written, happy that I’ve managed to support myself in one way or another since
I’ve been an adult, glad that Susan and I have written together without
splitting up as a couple, and relieved I haven’t been even worse to other
people.

SUSAN: I’m honestly
thrilled with the Wasteland trilogy.
Laurence and I had written together before—we wrote two graphic novels, City of Spies and Brain Camp, that were lots of fun, and I love those, too. But those
were basically screenplays, a form we’re very comfortable with; and they’re
much shorter, too. That we were able to not only plot and structure this
immense story but then actually write it without killing each other still
amazes me. I’m really happy with the journey all of our characters take over the
course of the trilogy – not only Esther and her friends, of course, but all of
the people they encounter on the way.

And like Laurence, I’m
thrilled that I’ve been able to support myself by basically telling stories.

14. Are you a plotter or
a pantser?

SUSAN: I think that
everything I write comes out of both. The early stages tend to be incredibly
pants-y… I like to follow my gut and take chances and let my characters roam
all over the page or lie down and be incredibly passive. Writing the WASTELAND
books was a bit different, since there were two of us. The outlining stage is
when we allowed ourselves to be pantsers, at least to a degree: we’re both very
familiar with dramatic action and story structure, but when we outline, we’re
just trying to come up with a basic plot together, brainstorming little
moments, possible developments, motivations, and so on. It’s extremely loose;
I’m sure the early notes from our early sessions would seem totally incoherent
to an outsider. But out of that, we start to really buckle down and structure
the plot. By the time we’re ready to write, we usually have a detailed outline
that’s literally pages and pages long. Even so, I occasionally veer a little
from what we’ve agreed on; sometimes, the characters surprise you. And of
course, those little changes reverberate and affect everything that follows.

LAURENCE: I didn’t know what a “pantser” was
until Susan told me. I’m a plotter, though most of my schemes go desperately
awry.

15. How important are
the names of the characters in your books? Do they all tend to have a deeper
meaning, or do you choose them because they just seem to flow well with the
story?

LAURENCE: I generally can't write a character
until I have the right name, though sometimes it changes as I write. Some have
meanings known only to me; with others, it's just a sound thing or a joke. For
the Wasteland books, we wanted to use
a mix of whatever might be left in the air and in people's heads after a
societal collapse: names from the Bible, ads, different nationalities, etc.

SUSAN: I certainly try
not to come up with really ordinary or interchangeable names… unless of course
that’s an integral part of what I’m writing, e.g. a world of people named Bob.
As Laurence said, we definitely tried to come up with names that had a bit of
resonance; some of them, like “Esther” and “Joseph” are definitely meant to
recall the Bible. Funnily enough, we sometimes come up with names that we
realize too late sound too much alike; so we’re constantly tinkering and
changing them as we go along.

16. Do you read your
reviews?

LAURENCE: Usually, to see if I or anyone else
can use them. But some of the ones online are so mean, I just skim them through
shaking fingers.

SUSAN: I have to confess
that I only read nice reviews that someone, usually Laurence, emails to me. I
know some people read terrible reviews; but I can’t. They just kill me. I still
remember bad reviews years later—not just the negative ones, which are painful
enough, but the really cruel, mean ones. And even while the good reviews make
you feel great for a while, they’re like a sugar rush; you know you’re going to
crash by evening. The sad fact is you can’t depend on others for praise or
criticism; you have to listen to and trust yourself.

Thank you for stopping by my blog today. I would also like to say Thank You to Susan & Laurence for the interview and say Thank You to Book Nerd Tours for letting me participate in this blog tour.